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Dessert

Blackberry Pudding

A steamed blackberry pudding with a sweet butter‑sugar sauce, topped with berries and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Blackberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, salt, and egg until well combined.

  2. Gently fold in the floured blackberries and soft butter.

  3. Pour the mixture into an ungreased covered mold or tightly covered basin.

  4. Steam for 2 hours.

Dry and make the sauce

  1. Ten minutes before serving, turn the pudding out onto a tin and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven to dry.

  2. For the sauce, beat together ¼ cup soft butter and 1 cup powdered sugar until smooth.

  3. Add 1 cup sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Before serving, fold in the beaten egg whites and season with vanilla or fresh berries.

Serve

  1. Garnish with blackberries and whipped cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness and a deep flavor to the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pudding's structure.
Blackberries
Add fruit flavor and moisture, and their flour coating keeps them from sinking.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding in a tightly covered mold. A tight seal keeps steam trapped around the pudding so it cooks evenly and stays moist. If steam escapes, the surface dries out and the pudding can turn heavy or unevenly set.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, milk, egg, butter, sauce, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, milk, egg, butter, sauce, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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